The headaches started without warning. Sharp, shooting, piercing whiteness that would leave me helpless, unable to do anything, except stay in bed under the blanket and wait for it to pass. Calling my boss and telling him, “I’m sorry I can’t, I have a headache” sounded extremely dubious. According to my colleagues, he once muttered darkly, “I’m not asking for sex, just a PPT”.
add_main_imageAfter two weeks of being attacked mercilessly, I trudged to the doctor, petrified. I felt like someone in those old Hindi movies, with flashing red lights, dizzying headaches and the final verdict of the white coat man ‘Brain Tumour’. The only problem was that in this scenario, I had no love to sacrifice or hero to save, before I inevitably collapsed in the arms of someone who believed in me all along. To make it worse, the divorce would ensure I would die alone, like a Guru Dutt finale. Before I started singing, ‘Dekhi Zamane Ki Yaari’ the doctor walked in, examined me, listened to my symptoms and cheerfully asked me to do an MRI.
If I wasn’t so scared to death, what followed next would have been my favourite Solaris fantasy come alive. The technician asked me to lie down. As my body moved into that long cylindrical tube, I thought of T.S. Eliot, ‘This is the way the world ends, Not with a bang but a whimper’. NextMAds
I was definitely whimpering in there, for the Malayali nurse in a voice that sounded suspiciously like it was filled with smothered giggles told me not to worry. I cursed the sistah from my Motherland and wished her training had included sensitivity, gentleness and restraint as subjects.
After I got out of the lab alive, I had to wait 48 hours before the results came. In that time, since I was anyway doing nothing other than twiddling my trembling thumbs, I made a will. It was shocking to see how little I owned. I wondered whether I should add stuff in the Ex’s house, which was mine to fatten the list.
I hadn’t told my parents as I didn’t want them to worry. Those two days of waiting, carrying the fear in me, like an inner rot nobody could see was perhaps one of the most helpless situation I have ever been in.
The results came and the doctor couldn’t find anything wrong. As the tears of relief tumbled down my cheeks, he handed me his hanky and gently enquired whether I had no one who could come along with me for these check-ups. I shook my head, feeling quite sorry for my aloneness.
After that melodrama, euphoria flooded me. I was fine, I wasn’t going to die. The good doctor gave me pain killers and asked me to wait six months. In four months the headaches died a natural death.
The day I woke up headache-free was the beginning of my new life. It struck me like a ton of bricks. I may have gotten a divorce but I still had my health and my sanity. How could I have forgotten to count these blessings? What a fool I was. A lucky fool who could rebuild what was lost with worn-out but still-working, yes, still-working tools. sixthMAds
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